Sound of the Universe
by NoodlesandPie
Summary: "They got him young. It was in winter. he cant remember the month, the days all blended together back then, but he remembered the cold." A little (ish) one shot about how Ianto came to work for Torchwood One.


**Author Notes: This is just a little one shot I wrote. It was meant to be shorter, but got away from me a bit! I tried to make the timeline fit with canon, but it's always difficult with Torchwood, so if I didn't, just pretend. This is my first fanfic, so if I use the site wrong, someone please tell me in the reviews how to fix it? I welcome reviews, even if they are to tell me it's all crap, but positive ones would be nice. Please be honest though! Enjoy ****.**

They got him young. Nineteen. Working part time as a barista in a god-awful coffee shop, part time as, well, something less than savoury. Was at university, if only as an excuse to escape his father. He didn't like it much, but stayed in London. Education wasn't interesting. It didn't fuel the fire he had raging inside of him, something longing for a more exciting life.

He supposed that's what drew him to Dylan and his gang, as well as his difficult upbringing. Kids like that tended to group together, he didn't know why, they just did. Kindred spirits, if you like. They were all pretty fucked up. Jenny was addicted to crack. Dylan was a high school dropout, who could hardly read the bus timetable, let alone an actual book. Ianto was a little different in that regard. He read like he was drowning and books were air, and the only thing he was addicted to was the thrill of the chase. Maybe that's the wrong word to use, because most of the time, he was the one getting chased, and not the other way around.

Just a group of kids trying to get by on what scraps they could steal. And no matter how tough or independent they thought they were, that's all they were really, just a group of kids.

It was in winter. He can't remember what month it was, the days all blended together back then, but he remembered the cold. That's probably why he did it. Fingers going numb, mind racing, nose blue, stuck in that little shack Dylan called "the base", it was hard not to want to curl up in front of the fire with a good book. _I could always go home, _he thought, but dismissed the thought quickly. A violent, drunken father and a sister that always took his side no matter what? It was enough to put anyone off. No, he stayed in Dylan's "base" as often as possible; even if it was bloody cold, going home just enough to not be considered missing, and then taking off again, back to London. (He would stay cold, for a long time, even in the summer when sweat was dripping off him, his fingers would be chilled. He didn't even notice it half the time, and when he did he just assumed it was a psychological thing, and left it at that. They only got warm when a certain blue eyed captain crashed into his life. But Jack made his whole being warm, so there was no surprise there.)

"I'm going to the shop. Want anything?" he said to Dylan.

"I'm going to the shop. Want anything?" Dylan mimicked in a mockery of Ianto's accent. He was a right arse when it was cold. Ianto rolled his eyes. Then he walked out the door, not bothering to say goodbye to Jenny, the only other person in the hut/shack/ditch. The others tended to come and go, especially when it was winter, hanging out in homeless shelters or youth hostels, if they had a bit of spare cash. Ianto never had spare cash, and he always felt uncomfortable at a homeless shelter, as he wasn't _technically_ homeless.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and began to walk up the street, making sure his hood obscured most of his face. He was grubby and malnourished, and that and a dark cold night didn't exactly make people welcoming.

He had lied. He wasn't going to the shop. Dylan didn't want anything and he didn't have any money anyway. He was going to the library. He needed to get away from Dylan's spite, and Jenny's empty eyes, and a book seemed just the way to do it. And the library was warm too. It was run by an aging, obese woman called Marge, who was probably developing the first stages of Alzheimer's, as she always forgot to turn off the heating when she locked up. Never forgot to lock the windows though. She was overly paranoid, and triple checked all the locks each night. Ianto didn't get it. It wasn't like she had a teenage boy breaking in every night to take advantage of the heating and vast supply of books.

Ianto had to climb up the drainpipe round the back, and shimmy in through a gap in the outer wall. After that, it was easy enough to pick the lock, and he was in. The library felt different tonight though. There was something in the air, some danger Ianto could sense. More wary than usual, he made his way around the wall and peeked down the corridor made by the first bookshelf. Nothing. Tiptoeing around the second bookshelf, he froze. There was a scrabbling sound coming from the classics section.

Hardly daring to breathe, he cautiously picked his way through the many chairs and tables, to look down the first row of bookshelves. There was a very tall man there, his back towards him. He breathed out a sigh of relief. He didn't know what he had been expecting, but a fellow burglar? He could deal with that. He briefly surveyed his options. He could smack him over the back of the head and run, or he could sneak out. But both those options demanded he leave the library. He was too cold and bored to go back to the base. So he could ask the man if he could stay. He didn't appear to be stealing anything, and Ianto was pretty sure there was no one else here; he would have heard if there was. And if the thief got violent, Ianto was quick on his feet, even if he didn't fancy his chances in a fight.

"Hello?"

Ianto expected the man to jump, but all he did was wave his head in a vaguely reptilian manner. Ianto stared, trying to make out his features in the dark.

"Are you alright?" asked Ianto, rather concerned. If he was a crazy and got violent, that was even worse. Or maybe he would start crying. _Oh god, no_, thought Ianto, mentally recoiling from having to comfort a sobbing man.

The man started to growl. Ianto barely had time to string a coherent thought together before the man was charging towards him. With a yelp, Ianto realised it wasn't a man, but a hideous, wrinkled, man shaped _thing_. He sprung out of the way, ducking behind a bookcase. And resemblance the creature might have had to a reptile was gone now. The beast was humanoid, wearing a blue boiler suit, its gruesome lips pulled up in a snarl to reveal serrated fangs. Any nose it might have had was squashed into an unrecognisable shape, resting between its sunken eyes, which were screwed up like there was a bright light, even though it was so dark Ianto couldn't see the far wall of the library. Its odd shaped skull was moving slightly on its neck, its thin layer of black hair bristling. It seemed to sniff the air for his scent. It reminded Ianto of his old geography teacher, which was not really a comparison that was useful to him right now. He was willing to bet any amount of the money he didn't have that Mr Larkin wasn't going to rip his throat out, even though it had seemed like it at times.

The creature caught his scent. Without a second thought, it was sprinting down the row of bookshelves.

Not being keen on the idea of dying a horrible death alone in an dark library (sounded like a good plot for an episode of a sci-fi television series), he grabbed a huge looking book from a shelf, spun round and _roared_ at the fast approaching creature. It stopped. Looked at him, tilting its head quizzically.

_It actually worked, _thought Ianto, just before the creature opened its mouth and charged, bending forward to head butt him. The sound hit him before the creature did, reverberating like a drum through his skull. Panicked and pretty sure his brain had _stopped working; _Ianto slammed the book he was holding down on the back of the creatures' neck. With a sickening crunch, it fell to the floor, its legs askew at odd angles beneath it.

Breathing heavily, Ianto couldn't believe his own eyes. "_Seriously?_" was the only thought running through his disturbingly empty brain, before he stumbled, and slid down to the ground, leaning against the bookcase. Absently, he wondered if he was in shock. Probably. Definitely. He couldn't feel his fingers.

Time

slowed

down.

When it started again, it was with a rush of light and noise. Somebody had opened the door to the library. As quietly as he possibly could, Ianto moved so that he was in between two bookcases, and only visible if someone walked all the way down this row of books. He was sure there was something better he should be doing, but he was still feeling a bit shell-shocked, and didn't trust his legs to hold him up. Listening to the murmuring voices a little ways from him, taut as a wire, Ianto gaze drifted to the book he had smashed into the creatures' skull. Shakespeare's collected classics. Saved by the bard himself. Sort of.

The voices started trickling down the air towards him. They dripped into his ears like honey and it took a little while for him to understand them.

"God, I hate weevils. I can't wait to catch this bastard and then go home."

Ianto thought it sounded male, a thick London accent.

"Shut up, Bart, it'll hear you."

A woman, now. Ianto closed his eyes. All this thinking was hurting his brain.

"Holy fuck!" Bart spluttered. "It's dead!"

Ianto guessed he was at the top of the corridor, the one formed by Shakespeare and his buddies.

There was rustling, then: "It's not dead, it's unconscious. Another weevil can't have done this. It looks like it was hit by a blunt instrument."

Ianto's heart was trying to push its way out of his chest, ping pong off the walls, and knock each of the intruders out. That would be a good, albeit unlikely, end to his predicament.

"So, there's someone else here? Someone capable of knocking out a weevil without a stun gun?" For a split second, Bart's voice sounded small and scared.

The woman must have nodded, because then his voice was booming through the library with such ferocity Ianto couldn't be sure whether he had just imagined the moment of weakness.

"THIS IS TORCHWOOD. WE DEMAND YOU REVEAL YOURSELF AND BE TAKEN FOR QUESTIONING."

Ianto decided to get up. There were many valid reasons for this decision, like they were _three feet _away, and any attempt at escape would be futile, and they would find him in three seconds flat if they decided to look. What was going through his mind though, when he struggled to his feet, was _ohmygodimgoingtodieibetterjustdowhathesaysandhopet ogodhedoesntshootme. _

Ianto calmly walked out from the gap in the bookcases. Instinct forced his near perfected mask onto his face, and his legs to be steady, and his hands to stop shaking, even if on the inside he was being choked by panic.

The woman raised an eyebrow, and Bart jumped a foot in the air, smothered a curse word, and then narrowed his eyes at Ianto.

"Um, hi?" said Ianto, unsure of how to act. Guns were cocked and raised, determined looks plastered over both their faces.

"ARMS BEHIND YOUR HEAD. ANY ATTEMPT AT RESISTANCE WILL RESULT IN YOUR EXECUTION."

Ianto raised his hands. Behind his head. _Holyshitholyshit_.

The woman shot a glance at the man. Something Ianto couldn't understand or describe passed between them, and it made him ache, quite suddenly, for some meaningful companionship, even though this was _so _not the time.

Gun still raised, the woman approached Ianto.

"Toni." Bart warned. She completely ignored him.

"What's your name?" she barked, but Ianto thought he saw something akin to kindness in her eyes.

"Jones. Ianto Jones."

"Where you from? Wales?" she asked, obviously detecting an accent in his speech.

"Cardiff." He answered warily. They weren't going to tell his dad, were they? That was worse than getting shot.

"Hey, kid, did you do this?" Bart boomed from beside the weevil, crouching down and cuffing its hands behind its back.

"Yes." Ianto decided short, sweet and polite was the way to deal with these people. Tell them what happened, keep it brief, then get the fuck out.

"You knocked it out? Bare handed?" Toni, for the first time, was betraying some surprise.

"No. With Shakespeare." Ianto answered, gesturing to the book lying a foot or two away from Bart.

"What, you just slammed it into the back of his skull? So you were attacking from behind? Unprovoked?" Bart was beginning to look suspicious now, and he clenched his gun tighter in his fists.

"Oh, no. He was charging at me, sort of bent over, so I, well, you know."

"Why were you in here anyway, kid?"

"Just explain from the beginning please." Toni cut Bart off impatiently.

As Ianto was explaining, Bart's eyebrows crawled further and further up his head, until Ianto thought they were going to fly off. Toni didn't react, except her frown deepened ever so slightly.

When he was finished, Bart clapped his hands together to break the rather awkward silence that ensued.

"Well, the question is-"

"What do we do with you now?"

It seemed to be a rhetorical question, so Ianto stayed silent while they stared at him contemplatively. The way they finished each other's sentences was rather eerie, and this whole situation was strange. When Ianto thought about it, he wanted to laugh. Trapped in a dark library with two heavily armed operatives and an unconscious weevil was not really the way he planned this night going.

"We could retcon him." said Toni, still staring at Ianto. It made him want to shrink back, or shuffle nervously. But he didn't, because, over the years, he'd learnt that it was better to hide weakness.

Bart glanced at Toni, then: "This is the boss now. I'll inform her and see what she says. Yeah, Toni?"

Toni didn't look at him, but nodded her head absently. Ianto could tell she was listening though, because her face darkened ever so slightly at his words.

Bart strode away, and then began talking in hushed tones to his earpiece.

Toni finally looked away, glancing at the heap on the floor. She gave it a light kick, to check it wasn't awake. Crouching down, she began arranging it in a more comfortable position. Ianto moved to help.

"What is it?"

"It's a weevil. Bloody strong these things. It's a miracle you managed to overpower it, really."

"Where did it come from?"

She looked up, a twinkle in her eye. "Oh, you wouldn't _believe_ some of the things crawling round London."

Ianto filed this away for further contemplation. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Torchwood. We're a government organization that works to round up these things and the like. Like a glorified pest control, if you ask me." She sniffed.

"Is he talking to your boss?"

"Yup. She might want to talk to you." Toni tried for nonchalance, but Ianto could see her tense all over.

"What's retcon?"

Toni looked up, scowled, and then went back to work. Ianto decided not to ask again. They turned the creature over so it was lay on its back, and straightened its legs out.

"Look, Ianto," said Toni, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You ask too many questions. Try and tone it down a bit if you have to see the boss, yeah? And try to appear, I dunno, useful. She might recruit you or something." She gave a little half hearted laugh stroke sigh. "You never know with Hartman."

"Is that her name? Hartman?"

Toni gave a small smile. "What did I say about questions?"

It was hard; Ianto was burning up with curiosity, but he managed to contain himself.

Bart cleared his throat behind them.

"You giving him the recruitment speech?"

"Better than the alternative." Toni said coolly.

"Right. Well. The boss wants to see you. So probably just as well. Backup's coming to pick this up." He said, gesturing toward the weevil. "We have to get him to base ASAP."

Toni rubbed a hand over her eyes. "Come on, Ianto, I have to cuff you."

Ianto paled slightly. He didn't fancy being defenceless, it went against all his instincts, especially because he had no idea where he was going. But he complied, and held his hands still while Toni cuffed them in front of him.

Bart grabbed his elbow rather roughly. "Sorry, kid, used to something a lot bigger than you in these handcuffs." Bart chuckled at his own joke, and led Ianto out of the library, and into a black, tinted SUV parked outside. He settled himself in one of the back seats apprehensively. Toni slid in beside him, while Bart got in the front, and gunned the engine. They didn't seem to believe in seatbelts, and Bart's erratic driving didn't really put him at ease. He concentrated on the rumble of the car beneath him, instead of the panic inducing constriction on his wrists.

Toni glanced at him sympathetically.

After about ten minutes, they slowed and pulled into an underground car park. It was hard to see out of the windows, the back ones seemed to be tinted in such a way that the passenger couldn't make out any details, but Ianto thought they were somewhere in central London. Bart slammed the brakes, and the SUV shuddered to a stop.

"Your motor skills impaired?" asked Ianto. He was met with an unintelligible grumble from Bart and an eye roll paired with a grimace from Toni.

"Stop making puns and get out the car, kid."

Ianto held his connected wrists up to demonstrate that he couldn't, and Toni, rather ungraciously, stomped out of the car, and helped Ianto out.

They led him up some concrete stairs, which stunk of piss. It was disconcerting walking up the stairs with handcuffs on, and Ianto was beginning to wonder if they would ever end. However, the way Toni was getting tenser and tenser the further they got made him doubt whether he wanted them to.

Abruptly, the stairwell changed, as they headed through a bright yellow door opening into a long white corridor, polished to the point of shining, sporting the occasional harried scientist rushing through it. Bart and Toni looked like stains against the walls, kitted out in their black, bulky combat uniforms.

"Hey, Toni!" A young scientist belted out from the other end of the corridor, receiving a few peeved looks from the surrounding white coats.

Toni waved at him as he jogged up to her, flashing Bart an arrogant grin, who had gone stiff behind Ianto.

"Picking up strays?" he smirked, looking at Ianto, who bristled.

"Something like that." laughed Toni, rather uneasily. Ianto would later find out he was called Conner, and was the biggest creep to ever grace Torchwoods corridors, getting away with two counts of sexual assault based solely on the fact that one victim was an inexperienced office girl (blonde, flirty, obviously asking for it), and the other was male (Men can't get raped. Duh).

He glanced at Bart, grinned again, and sauntered off down the corridor. Toni sighed. Bart relaxed slightly beside Ianto, but his eyes were storm clouds set in his face.

They marched down the corridor to a row of lifts, where several burly security guards were stationed.

"Tony. Giles." Toni nodded at each of them, who grunted in reply and scanned her body with handheld, black objects, that looked a little like lint rollers.

The objects bleeped in what could only be described as an affirmative tone, and the guards moved on to Ianto and Bart. They were both cleared, and with a jerk of the seemingly mute man's head, were allowed to pass through to an open elevator.

The ride up was silent.

When they reached the top, they were greeted by two absolutely huge figures, a man and a woman, with formidable expressions and clenched fists. They both had hairy knuckles.

Ianto glanced back at Toni, and forgot all about the storm clouds in Bart's eyes: there were hurricanes in Toni's.

"Does Hartman not think we can handle him?" she ground out.

The woman spoke. "You failed to blindfold him, and had blatant disregard for basic security procedures."

"We cuffed him! And he got scanned!" she spluttered indignantly.

"And he has now had the chance to meet employees, witness the inside of our base of operations first hand, and discover some of the layout. He is officially a security threat."

A high nasally voice drifted from an open doorway a couple of metres away, followed by the click-clack of heels against the tiled floor. A professionally attired, blonde, tall woman emerged. She had an overly bright expression and Ianto couldn't tell if it was forced, or if it was the way her face was naturally. It seemed like a badly fitting mask, an effect which was magnified by her blood red lipstick and abundance of mascara.

"You have now given me no choice but to retcon, hire or kill him." She smiled slightly, but it was clear she was annoyed. "Operative Cedeno, Operative Alexander, you are dismissed."

Ianto glanced back at them, wary of taking his eyes off the two brutes and the snake-like woman between them, but concerned for Toni and Bart. Toni's expression was as clear and respectful as a pool of still water, but Bart was frowning slightly. They nodded, almost in unison, and Bart pressed the button for the lift to descend. Just before the lift shut, Ianto heard the sharp intake of breath which meant Toni was suffering from a severe case of word vomit, and it was all going to come spewing out in a hot angry mess pretty soon. For a moment, Ianto felt sorrier for Bart than he did for himself.

That didn't last long.

"Drug him, Stacy. We can't risk him seeing anymore." The woman signalled to the Brutes over her shoulder, already teetering away to her office. "I'll be down in a bit."

"WAIT!" Ianto yelled at her retreating back, but he was already being grabbed by the male Brute, and held in a backwards bear hug, while the female injected him with an unknown substance. He tried to struggle, but the drug slowed his movements, like he was in a pool full of treacle.

"Come on, mate." Male Brute sighed, grabbing his elbow and supporting him as he swayed. Ianto was in a glass case, and Brutes voices became distorted. The world went fuzzy around the edges. Noise. Heat. Then Ianto finally let go, and the darkness wrapped around him.

…..

Ianto awoke in a small, grey room. His head was pounding, and he felt like he had been stuffed with cotton wool. He was chained to a rickety chair on one side of a wide table in the centre of the room. Groaning, he swivelled his head to look to his left. He promptly retched over the side of his chair.

When his vision cleared, he could make out a mirror set into the wall. He rolled his eyes. _Could you get any more obvious?_

Ianto would have guessed he was being watched, even without the massive one way window to his side, and he was, irrationally, feeling insulted that they thought he wouldn't realise the significance of the mirror. Did they think he had never watched a detective program in his life? Something occurred to him. Maybe they wanted him to know he was being watched, to set him on edge. It was working. Ianto's mouth was dry and he was trembling.

He tried to calm himself down; using the retreat technique he had developed in his tweens. He wasn't here, this wasn't him, this was happening to a character in a book. His heart rate slowed, and his mind cleared, as he thought about himself in the third person. It made everything less real. When he was a lot younger, he took it all personally, but most of it was just circumstance, and circumstance he could deal with.

The door swung open with a crash. Ianto almost jumped, but reigned himself in. The woman he assumed was Hartman strode through the opening, followed by two silent Brutes. They looked like menacing sharks, the way they eyed him openly.

Hartman sat down. The chair he hadn't previously noticed scraped along the floor, and he cringed. She was opposite him now, smiling slightly, as the Brutes shut the door, and positioned themselves either side of it. Ianto felt penned in.

"What's your name?" she smiled.

"Ianto Jones, ma'am." He decided respectful was the best way to go, if he didn't want Brutes fist' outline permanently etched into his face.

Hartman almost purred.

"Operatives Cedeno and Alexander have reported. Operative Cedeno was insistent that you had no previous knowledge of what a weevil was. Is this true?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Do you know what we do to people who stumble across something they shouldn't?"

Ianto did, but he decided to stay quiet, as he didn't want to get Toni and Bart in trouble. More trouble than they were already in.

"Usually we retcon them, or kill them, if they are resistant." She didn't seem to be paying attention, inspecting her nails idly.

Ianto gulped. He knew she was watching his every move, so he tried not _to _move.

"However," She let her hand fall to the table, and spread her fingers out, staring him dead in the eye. "due to your surprising actions in the field, we have decided to employ you as a Junior Archivist. Maybe one day, you will work your way up to full Operative status, but it doesn't suit everyone. And we need more intuitive people in the Archives, anyway." She waved her hand dismissively. "If you step out of line, you will be retconned or executed."

Her face appeared to stretch over her bones as she smiled, and the corners of her eyes creased up. The only emotion behind that smile was glee making Ianto feel uncomfortable.

"Please release him, I am going to take him on a tour." She directed this at the Brutes at the door, gesturing to Ianto's wrists.

She was already turning away, and Ianto needed to know something. "Will Toni and Bart be alright?"

She turned her gaze on him, and her eyes were shards of ice.

"You mean Operative Cedeno and Operative Alexander? They will be appropriately punished for their negligence."

Dread squeezed Ianto's throat shut.

"You won't hurt them, will you? Or retcon them?" Ianto never truly understood the phrase "catch in the throat" until now, when he was filled with such a sinking feeling; he had to force the words out.

"Of course not." Hartman reached up to scratch her nose. "Come on, lots to see."

_Liar. _ Ianto expected better from the head of a secret organization, but he supposed she scared most of her employees into not asking the questions she didn't like. Now free, as Brute One and Two had unfastened his shackles, he got up and followed Hartman out the door.

Stumbling through the corridor, Ianto felt so guilty he could hardly see anything, so he was caught even more off guard by the sight that greeted him at the opening of a door onto a balcony. Filled with such wonder and shock, Ianto, forgot, if just for a moment, all about Toni and Bart. (They came back and haunted him later, don't worry, but eventually he had so many ghosts, they fell to the side.)

He gaped.

Despite the violence and injustice Ianto had already witnessed (there would be a lot more), he felt he belonged here.

…..

Two months later, Ianto Jones was sat in his (Torchwood owned) flat, making coffee.

He contemplated the girl he had seen today. He was always keeping an eye out for Toni and Bart, even if he didn't expect to see them, and was partaking in this rather melancholy pass time when he saw her. He wouldn't say it was love at first sight, Ianto wasn't like that, but she was interesting, vibrant, pretty. (Until she was a metal monster, but Ianto couldn't see that, only the young woman shouting at Conner.)

She was mouthing off to Conner, waving her arms accusingly. Ianto wanted to go and help, but judging by the way she had moved on to slapping him, she could handle herself. Ianto was holding an alien bomb which blew up when the carrier got angry anyway, so he wasn't going to risk a run in with Conner, who set his teeth on edge. He would talk to her tomorrow, find out her name. (It was months before he worked up the courage to talk to her, months after that before he asked her out.)

After his coffee, was brewed, Ianto turned on the radio, and tuned it so static echoed through the mostly empty flat. He had been doing this since his first day, every time he saw something particularly amazing, and was struck with his own insignificance. He remembered reading about it in high school. The static you hear on the radio is the microwaves left over from the Big Bang.

Ianto Jones, Torchwood Archivist, sat down, coffee in hand, and listened to the sound of the universe.

**Reviews would make my day.**


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